Mental Disorders Persist Among Gulf War Veterans 10 Years Later

Main Category: Veterans / Ex-Servicemen
Also Included In: Mental Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 18 May 2007 - 1:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

A new study from the USA has found that deployment in the Gulf War was associated with increased levels of mental disorders, psychological symptoms, and a lower quality of life - beginning during the war and persisting at a lower rate 10 years later.

Around 700,000 US military personnel were deployed to the Middle East during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These veterans reported greater psychological symptoms immediately after the war than veterans who were not sent to the Gulf.

The National Health Survey of Gulf War Era Veterans and Their Families was a study designed to collect information at several time points to assess the prevalence of medical and psychological conditions in both deployed and non-deployed veterans.

Postal and telephone surveys were conducted among 15,000 deployed veterans and 15,000 non-deployed veterans, beginning in 1995.

The current study, published in the May issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, evaluated a sub-set of these veterans, using face-to-face psychological examinations conducted between 1998 and 2001. Mental disorders were diagnosed using structural clinical interviews, and standard questionnaires assessed psychological symptoms and quality of life.

Both the deployed and the non-deployed veteran groups were 78% male. The deployed group were nearly 2 years younger than the non-deployed group, were more likely to be African-American, had lower levels of education and were less likely to be married or officers.

It was found that the prevalence of onset of mental disorders at the time of the war was significantly higher among deployed compared with non-deployed veterans.

In particular, deployed veterans had an increased incidence of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and non-PTSD anxiety disorders.

10 years later, these cases of depression and non-PTSD anxiety disorders remained significantly more prevalent among deployed compared with non-deployed veterans. PTSD was over 3 times more prevalent among deployed veterans.

Depression was less likely to improve among deployed than non-deployed veterans, although the levels of antidepressant use, and the severity of depression in the 2 groups were similar.

Depressed deployed veterans were nearly twice as likely as depressed non-deployed veterans to have additional mental disorders at the time of the war, which could explain the reduced likelihood that depression would improve in the deployed veterans group. Lower levels of education in the deployed group may also have contributed to their continued depression compared with the non-deployed group.

The authors of the study comment that the findings indicate that deployment had a range of adverse effects on both health-related and non-health-related quality of life 10 years later.

The results also suggest that pre-existing mental disorders represent an individual vulnerability factor for the development of mental disorders during war deployment.

Although continued depression in deployed veterans appeared partially resistant to improvement despite comparable levels of medication in the 2 groups, the authors conclude that anxiety disorders might possibly improve further with greater use of medication.

Overall, the findings point to the need for adequate follow-up mental healthcare for veterans with persistent mental illnesses following major military deployments.

Reference:
Toomey R, Kang HK, Karlinsky J, Baker DG, Vasterling JJ, Alpern R, Reda DJ, Henderson WG, Murphy FM and Eisen SA (2007)
"Mental health of US Gulf War veterans 10 years after the war"
British Journal of Psychiatry, 190, 385-393.

www.rcpsych.ac.uk

• Additional
• References
• Citations